Last Woman

by Druga, Jacqueline

  “I’ll think about it.” I flipped the page in the book. “What did you drop on the floor?”

  Dodge lifted a backpack. I recognized it. I had it when I left the stadium camp. He unzipped it and emptied the contents on the table.

  Stacks and stacks of driver’s licenses and identifications.

  “What are you doing with those?”

  “There was a reason you brought these along and it wasn’t just to remember civilization. I think it was a psychic intuition.”

  “For?”

  “Finding people.” He tossed a stack my way. “Did you look through all of these?”

  “No. There are hundreds if not a thousand.”

  “Good. Then start looking again.” He grabbed a stack and undid the rubber band. “What was Mikey’s mother’s name?”

  “There’s no way,” I said.

  “Worth a shot. Didn’t you say you’d help him in any way?”

  My jaw dropped.

  “Don’t say ‘really’ ”

  “I wasn’t going to.”

  “Besides, what else is there to do? Again, it’s worth a shot.”

  “You’re right.” I undid my rubber band. “Elizabeth Carrington. Westwood Drive.”

  “Elizabeth Carrington, Westwood.” Dodge slowly flipped through the stack he held.

  Boys asleep, Mikey resting, Dodge and I began to search through the massive amount of driver’s licenses. It would take a while, holding each license or identification card up to the small amount of light to read the name.

  It was something to do and it was something productive, whether it was in vain or not. In a way, I was helping Mikey. That was something I really wanted to do.

  38. Instinct

  For as much as I thought it, I probably said it. Dodge was right. More than likely, it wasn’t just some creepy thing I did, taking the licenses. It was a gut instinct. Maybe somewhere deep inside me I knew I’d eventually need them.

  We called it coincidence that Dodge knew one of the women. He lifted the card, said her name then recited a laundry list of car repairs he had done for her.

  It ceased being a coincidence when he found another and another. Either he had the most popular car repair shop in town or those bodies were from our locality. Dodge didn’t live or work far from my house.

  The Wilkes reports still never made any sense to me. There were names, but none of them matched a single license we found. Colors and numbers, and dates. I recognized dates and every so often he wrote a notation.

  Both Dodge and I were either talking too loud or George couldn’t sleep. In any event, he staggered his little body into the dining room and sat at the table with us.

  “What are you guys doing?”

  “Searching.” I told him.

  “For?” he asked, then reached forward and slid the clipboard to him.

  “Honey, that’s something I found. It won’t make any sense.”

  “Sure it does,” George said. “This is just truck numbers, locations and the color codes are how old the bodies are. Black means they have been bagged a while.”

  Dodge repeated his words almost as if he were in shock that George would say it like that. “Bagged a while?”

  “Trucks came by four times a day, more at first, then less. Then not at all. That’s the bodies that are still there.”

  I looked at the clipboard, lifted a page. “So this N-8, April 28. White? Means what?”

  “It means that North region eight, have a pickup of fresh bodies. If anyone was gonna wake up it would be in that stack. We were S-12. South region 12.”

  “My God, you poor thing,” I said. “To know this.”

  “It was something I did. That and collect wallets, take the …” He lifted a stack of identifications. “Licenses, put them in a band, and then in a box by the bodies.”

  “And here I thought Wilkes did this, instead it was an eight year old boy.”

  “In our region,” he said. “I don’t know who did those.”

  Dodge said. “You, probably. I know several of these people. They lived around there. Good job. But I am sorry you had that task.”

  George shrugged.

  I reached over and ruffled his hair.

  “So if you are looking through S-12 photos you must be looking for … for Mikey’s mom.”

  “Wow,” I huffed in disbelief. “That was pretty good. You’re really smart.”

  Again, he shrugged. “It’s a curse.” He spoke nonchalant, lifting a stack.

  That made me laugh.

  “I was in special classes at school. Not like the special classes that Darie would have to go to. The smart kind.” He looked at each picture on the license as he talked to us. Not even realizing he was making us smile. “This lady looks nice.” He handed Dodge the license. ‘Yeah, I won Calcusolve, which was a math competition, and I was supposed to go to Harrisburg for the state Spelling Bee final. Guess that’s not happening.”

  “Next thing you know, Buddy,” Dodge said. “You’re gonna tell me you play chess.”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  I raised my hand. “I don’t.”

  “Well, I do,” Dodge replied. “And you’re on George, I love a good chess game and somehow I think you’d be the one …”

  He stopped talking and all of us jolted when there was a knock at the door. It startled me so much, I felt my whole body go into spasms of trembles.

  “Stay here,” Dodge jumped up and pointed to George “Faye, grab the baby from the living room.”

  Another knock, it wasn’t pounding, it was gentle. “Dodge.” I watched him reach behind his waist of his pants for the revolver and pull it out. “Dodge, seriously? You’re pulling a gun.”

  “You don’t know.” He walked to the door.

  “Yeah, I do. I’m pretty sure the bad guys aren’t gonna tap on the door.”

  He grunted at me, stared me down for a moment and walked to the door. “What are you doing?” he asked

  “Seeing who’s there.”

  “Faye,” he held up his hand. “Just ... just stay back.”

  I folded my arms. “Fine.” Then I felt George move behind me, obviously he wasn’t heeding Dodge’s warning either.

  Weapon ready, Dodge placed his foot near the bottom of the door to stop it from blasting open. Then he turned the knob, peeked through the slight crack, and with an exhale, opened the door all the way.

  The senior man, who looked more like a retired executive, rather than pandemic survivor, took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “I was out looking for my daughter. I saw the light in the distance. Imagine my surprise when I got home to find most of my food was gone and my Fastball is parked in your back driveway.”

  I exhaled loudly with a laugh of relief and charged forward. “Mr. Doyle.”

  I embraced him with gratitude and welcomed him into my home. Although I made a mental note to tell Dodge about all the times he made fun of me for not wanting to loot my neighbors. Maybe I did have more of a psychic intuition than I gave myself credit for.

  39. Lost

  Mr. Doyle didn’t spend the entire night, but he did stay long enough to have a drink and tell us that he was trying to find his other daughter who was across town. He had no plans on returning, but decided he was going to come back for his RV and then head west. I can only imagine what he thought when he saw I had his RV and his car.

  He was good about it. That was just Mr. Doyle. He didn’t hold much hope that his daughter out west was alive, because the last they talked she was very sick.

  He did, however, run into other survivors. “A man and a boy,” Mr. Doyle said. “I was going to stay with them, but they were headed south to Kentucky and didn’t want to wait for me.”

  He also didn’t understand quite why.

  Dodge explained to him what was happening and Mr. Doyle said he’d return in the morning to start getting Fastball ready.

  He didn’t waste time the next morning either, bright and early he came over.
I was still sleeping, my mind spinning and turning from looking at the driver’s licenses all night long.

  I woke to discover how good Doyle was with children. Actually, remembering how good he was. I kind of felt out of place. Dodge being ‘mister’. Dad, Doyle being a natural grandfather.

  After splashing my face with a little water, freshening up, I stumbled into the kitchen as they spoke regarding me shaving my head.

  Doyle facially disagreed with Dodge. “I honestly just think they haven’t found any women yet. Is it possible for a flu to be genetically specific? Who knows? I was a tax lawyer. Ask me about a Schedule C and I’ll go into great detail. Ask me about a germs and I’m clueless.”

  “It’s a tough situation,” Dodge replied. “If it were just her and I, then I’d really debate on joining up with a group. But the boys need that. The boys need other people and they need someone to watch out for them.”

  I cleared my throat to make my announcement in the room, then poured a cup of coffee. “I’m not shaving my head, deepening my voice or pretending to be a shocked mute. Forget it.”

  “If you are the last woman,” Dodge said. “It can be bad.”

  “Not yet,” Doyle added. “Maybe a few months from now. Worry about it then. Right now, I think people aren’t thinking that way. Most aren’t and the few who are … well, you look like a big mean guy, Dodge, no offense. But I think you wouldn’t have any problem dealing with it. Rich is probably breathing a sigh of relief you found her.”

  “She found me.”

  “In jail,” I added.

  Doyle smiled over his coffee. "Even better.”

  Suddenly, I believe Doyle saw Dodge as a hardened criminal.

  We all shared a morning laugh over that until George barreled into the room.

  “He’s gone.” George yelled.

  “Who?” I asked panicked, “Darie?”

  “No, he’s playing that old hand game. Mikey. He’s gone. I went into the room to see if he wanted to eat or go out and he was gone.”

  Dodge’s head cocked. “He had to have left before I got up and that was hours ago.”

  “Damn it.” I chugged my coffee as hot as it was, set down the cup and headed to the kitchen. “Thank you George.”

  “Whoa. Wait. Where are you going?” Dodge grabbed my arm.

  “To find him.”

  “Let him go. He’ll be back or he won’t. I got a bad feeling about that kid, Faye.”

  “Dodge, you’re wrong. He’s only lost and confused and he’s gonna search every body.”

  “Then let him.” Dodge said.

  “I promised him I’d help.”

  “Faye, he obviously doesn’t want your help.”

  “He doesn’t know how much I can end his search. You know it and I know it.”

  Dodge sighed out, then ran his hand down his face. “Showing him his mother’s license isn’t going to make a difference.”

  “I know. But I have to try. If I can stop him from looking at one more decaying body then that’s one less nightmare that boy will face.” I went into the dining room, to the get the license, the one I found in the tenth stack, the one that belonged to Mikey’s mother. I retrieved it, placed it in my back pocket and walked to the door.

  “Faye.”

  “He’s on foot, I know where he went. I’ll find him.” I opened the door, ignoring Dodge’s call of my name, and walked out.

  <><><><>

  When I reached the edge of my property, I remembered Rich’s bike in the garage. I wasn’t sure how well the tires were, but I didn’t want to waste the gasoline going only a few miles.

  Dodge was diligently trying to stop me, calling my name, swearing at me. But I ignored him and stayed focused.

  About a mile down the road, I heard the car pull up.

  “Faye, get in.” Dodge said from the car.

  “You’re wasting gas.”

  “Well, I’m here. Mr. Doyle is with the boys. Park the bike.”

  “I can’t just leave it, it’s Rich’s bike.”

  “I’ll come back for it when I do the gas run.”

  I kept peddling.

  “Goddamn it, Faye.”

  I stopped. “Why do you swear at me?”

  “I’m sorry, just get in. Leave the bike, I promise no one will steal it.”

  Reluctantly, I perched the bike against a parked car, and got in the wagon with Dodge.

  It was a good thing I did, because when we arrived at the Walmart, Mikey was nowhere to be found.

  I imagined Mikey lost, wandering, checking every body he passed on the road. I didn’t want to face the fact that we may have lost him, he may have taken off.

  Dodge headed east and told me about another site they were taking bodies. One he and the boys saw the day before and that was where they found Mikey.

  We weren’t even a block away and I could smell the bodies. It was rank and I wanted to gag. I brought my shirt over my face.

  How many bodies were there that the stench carried that much of a distance? We hit a military blockade before I even saw any bodies. But I heard the flies. Millions of them. Dodge was able to drive around close to the body dump site.

  Just beyond the blockade was the fence to the local high school baseball field. The field was covered in black and tan body bags, occasionally speckled with what looked like bed sheets in the tall, wide and high mounds. As we stopped the car, that was when I saw Mikey.

  He was by home plate, at the edge of the mound, he sat on the ground, rocking back and forth and in his arms was a body.

  I quickly looked to Dodge. “That can’t be her, can it? We found her license.”

  “Maybe they just took her license.” Dodge suggested.

  I opened the car door.

  “Faye.” Dodge called my name.

  The smell was horrendous and hit me like a ton of bricks, instantly filling my mouth with saliva. As hard as it was, I had to put that aside and focus on helping Mikey.

  “Mikey,” I called his name.

  “Go away.”

  “Mikey,” I stepped closer.

  “I said, Go away!” He shouted emotionally then looked down to the body he held. “It’s over.”

  I was still a good twenty feet from him. But clearly I could see how rotted the body was.

  “I went to homecoming with this girl. Look at her. Look at this. It’s over.”

  “Mikey, let’s go.” I extended my hand.

  The body rolled from Mikey’s lap as he stood. “I’m not going anywhere until I find my mother.”

  “She’s not here, Mikey.”

  “She is.”

  “No.” I reached into my pocket. “When I was at the stadium, there were thousands and thousands of bodies. The military gathered their names and identification. I took a lot of those photo ID’s.” I pulled the license from my back pocket. “I’m sorry, Mikey, I am so sorry. I found your mother’s license last night.” I held the license out to him.

  Mikey surprised me in two ways at that moment. He shouted emotionally knocking the license from my hand and swatting me away. “You’re lying!” The second surprise was that he did so with a gun in his hand.

  Instinctively I stepped back.

  “Where did you get that?” I asked. My body shook, I hated guns and I inched back even more.

  “There’s dead soldiers everywhere, where do you think. It wasn’t hard.”

  Dodge must have spotted the gun, because he raced over and the second he did that, Mikey swung the gun outward and aimed.

  “Put it down, Mikey,” Dodge said calmly.

  “No.” Mike shook his head. “This is life now? I don’t want to be a part of it. My friends are dead, my family is dead. What is there left?”

  “Us,” I said.

  Mikey laughed. It was a mad laughter. “Oh my God, are you serious? Are you fucking serious? You think you’re a reason for me to want to live? You didn’t want to live. I didn’t understand it then, I do now. You know I hated you for pushing me awa
y. Hated you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I called the police when you took those pills. I’m sorry I kept checking on you scared to death that you were gonna kill yourself. I kept thinking, Mark wants me to watch his mom. But you didn’t. I shouldn’t have stopped you. I was wrong for not letting you die.”

  “No, you weren’t. You weren’t wrong.” I pleaded. “Please, Mikey, just put down the gun.”

  “And do what? Go to Kentucky? Make new friends, call you ‘Mom’ and Dodge here ‘Dad’? Right. People aren’t replaced and you know it. There’s nothing to live for. I don’t want to live in this world, Mrs. Wills.”

  “I want you to,” speaking gently, I slowly extended my arm again. “Come with me, Mikey. We’ll talk, work this out. I really want you to live.”

  “No you don’t.” He said coldly. “And I don’t think you really want to live either. Your kids are dead, your husband is dead. Yeah …” he nodded. “You don’t. Here’s what I took from you.” He extended the gun.

  It all happened so fast. I saw the gun, I felt the fear and then I felt the slam of Dodge’s body into mine just as the gun went off. We careened hard to the ground and landed with a thud. Dodge was heavy on top of me, I could barely move.

  My mind spun, I was trying to comprehend. Mikey shot at me, I felt a pain in my left arm and wasn’t sure if I was having a heart attack or if I was hit.

  Dodge lifted some of his weight, and I turned my head, catching my breath and then I saw Mikey.

  The gun was to his head.

  He looked right at me, as if waiting for me to see him.

  “No!” I screamed loud and long.

  Bang.

  40. Too Far Gone

  It was the second most traumatic event in my life. Not even waking up amongst a pile of decomposing bodies measured up to identifying my family at the morgue or seeing a sixteen year old boy kill himself.

  Mikey had taken his own life and made eye contact with me as he did it. It seemed to happen in slow motion. His look at me, that eerily peaceful look, then watching the spray of blood.